The traditional khadi popularised by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, has been reinvented in the form of ‘khadi-denim’ with a view to boost sales in today’s competitive market flooded with national and international apparel brands.
Rajkot-based Saurashtra Rachnatmak Samiti (SRS) introduced khadi-denim in the market about eight months back, which is now proving to be a hit.
Gandhi used khadi as a tool to fight against the British rule and made the khadi-producing ‘charkha’ a symbol of the Indian non-violent freedom movement.
He promoted khadi as a means of self-employment for people that was ultimately aimed at reviving the villages. On Gandhi’s call, Indian people renounced Britain-imported cloth to take up khadi, bankrupting Manchester in the process.
However, after witnessing khadi sales dwindling over the past few years, SRS decided to give a modern touch to the traditional cloth to revive it.
“Year-by-year, sales of khadi have been decreasing and more and more people associated with the khadi industry leave the profession,” SRS Chairman, Mr Davendra Desai, told PTI.
“This made us think about how to arrest the decline in sales and save the livelihood of the people. We decided to give khadi more of a modern and 21st century make-over by producing designer dress, shirts and denim-khadi, instead of only the traditional kurta-pyjamas,” he said.
“Out of all these products, denim-khadi has been a hit in sales at all our outlets in Gujarat. Now, the biggest denim player in the market, Arvind Mills, has contacted us for mass-scale production of khadi-denims,” he said.
However, Mr Desai adds that it was not an easy task to make khadi-denim popular among people.
“First of all, we had to make a different kind of khadi, so that it can match the denims available in the market. We produced quality material from which strong and durable trousers could be made,” he said.
“To popularise it was again a herculean task, so we decided to hold fashion shows, with models walking on the ramp, wearing new khadi products, including khadi-denim,” Mr Desai said, adding that well-publicised fashion shows in big cities people’s attention to khadi denims.
Some enterprising designer took the khadi denim concept to Paris textile show, which aroused international interest in the product.
“The sales in our outlet grew after fashion-conscious people came to our stores to try something new. Khadi denim is one of the growing products to have good sales across our outlets and others in Gujarat have followed us,” Mr Desai said.
“Last year, we had introduced two colours — white and black — of khadi-denims. But due to the demand, they are now available in six colours,” he said.
“We are soon going to sign an MoU with Arvind Mills, which has shown interest in mass scale production of khadi-denim, for supply of 5,000 metres of cloth every month,” Mr Desai said.
“This development is likely to revive the khadi industry and create more self-employment opportunities for the people,” he added.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.